Not All Rainbows and Butterflies

There are many who would have you believe that if you become a Christian everything in your life will be easy. There are preachers who preach that your life will be free from suffering, all things will go your way and you will be materially prosperous once you give all control over to Christ. That is a lie.

Nowhere in Scripture does Christ say, “Follow me and your life will be all rainbows and butterflies.” What does He say? “If anyone would come after me let him take up his cross and deny himself and follow me.” Take up his cross? Deny himself? That doesn’t sound like rainbows and butterflies and you would be right. It’s not. The Christian life is the hardest there is to live. We should not only expect suffering but we are promised suffering. We are fish swimming up stream constantly. There is no time to relax, no point at which we can stop and catch our breath. We must be always on our guard because our flesh is always ready to take advantage of our weakness and the devil is standing in the shadows preparing snares for our feet. 

My brothers and sisters, if life were supposed to be easy God would have laid everything we could ever need or desire right at our feet. But if this were the case, there would be no need to trust Him, and no need to rely on His faithfulness. So we have trials. Sometimes God might wait until the last minute to provide a need for you just to see if you’ll still trust Him when your need is most dire. He tests us. And this is good! Tests show us where we are at in our walk with God. Just like in school, they help us track the progress we are making in a particular area of our life. Sometimes, we may fail but the Lord remains faithful even then. So dear reader, I exhort you to put your trust in our Lord and His providence and to have faith that He will always be faithful to us, His children. Only by casting our cares on Him and trusting in Him for our every need will we have the true rest we are all longing for. 

A Means to An End

Quite often I find myself daydreaming of the day that I will walk down the aisle in a stunning white dress toward the man that I will spend the rest of my life with. Ah, yes, my wedding day. I think of it often, yet the face I will see looking down the aisle is still quite the mystery.

Some days I'm able to enjoy the mystery and savor the excitement of one day finding out who Mr. Right is but most days I tell God that I'm tired of waiting and think that I'm quite ready to bring an end to this dreary season of singleness.

Despite my constant petitions, encouraging nudges and attempts to make it so, the Lord has so far denied my request. This is a hard pill to swallow at times. I've officially entered the season where all my friends are getting married so I feel like it should be happening for me too, but it's not.

So why am I dissatisfied in the lot the Lord has given me? Singleness, though uncomfortable at times, really isn't that bad. You can do whatever you want to do, go wherever you to want to go, and maintain your own time and resources at your own discretion (bearing in mind the will of the Lord). But even so, in singleness we have A LOT of freedom. Why give that up?

I think I often fall into the trap of thinking that my life doesn't really begin until I have a man to share it with. So until he comes I'm just waiting around trying to look busy. But this ought not be the case. Marriage is not the end or goal of my life. Neither is singleness. God gives both and takes away both but the season is not an end in and of itself. Rather, each season is a means to God's end for our lives which is our sanctification (1 Thess. 4:3).

God gives us a season of singleness and a season of marriage to sanctify us. We can't worry that not being married means that we're not fulfilling our purpose. Our purpose is not to be married. Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him and we can do that whether or not we have a ring around our finger.

The Lord is sovereign over where you are right now even if you don't want to be there. Live out your singleness with earnestness. Use your talents to build up the kingdom of God, travel to another country, go on a mission trip. The possibilities are endless and being single means the barriers are low.

Each season in your life contributes to your sanctification. Take advantage of each one and don’t waste it. Trust God every day and hope in Him.  

The LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor. No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.  -Psalm 84:11

Freedom in God's Will

  Are you fretting over which school to go to, which job to take, who to marry or what house to buy? Do you worry that if you choose one path over another that you’ll miss out on what God had planned for you if you had chosen differently? Are you waiting for signs to appear and peace to befall you before you make a decision? 

I’ve been there and I know that it is a difficult place to be. For the Christian, decision making can often be confining and make you feel like you’re walking on a tight rope because we are doing our best to follow God’s will for our lives. However, we don’t and really can't know what God’s will is for our lives when it comes to what school to go to, what career to choose, or who to marry. The answers to those questions aren't in the Bible. This is why we (or at least I) often feel constrained when faced with a choice and always fearful of making the wrong decision.

I struggled for days and possibly weeks to decide whether I would go to Stetson University or Florida State University. I prayed. I weighed the pros and cons of each. And then I prayed some more. One day I would lean toward Stetson, the next I would want to go to FSU. I continued praying, wondering if God was ever going to “tell” me what school to go to. Still, after more praying and weighing of both options, I didn’t feel “God leading” me one way or the other. One day my dad told me that I had until the end of the day to make a decision. Yikes! The prospect of making such a decision in a matter of hours was not welcomed but by the end of the day I had decided to go to FSU. The decision had been made and there was no more going back.

Recently, I read Kevin DeYoung’s book, Just Do Something. It deals mainly with how to discern God’s will and make wise choices without waiting for a sign from above. Reading this book has completely liberated me from this sort of experience in decision making.

In his book, DeYoung explains that we are not meant to know what God’s hidden will for our lives is. All we can know for certain regarding His will is what He has laid out in Scripture. God does not expect us to know where He is taking us before we get there. He doesn’t expect us to know that we need to go to this school or buy this house in order to accomplish His will for our lives. More than that, He doesn’t plan to tell us in advance, before we make life-changing decisions.

So what can we do if God isn’t going to put up big red blinking arrows in the sky for us to happily follow along our way? We must search the Scriptures. There we will find the principles needed to make every decision we will ever be faced with. We must use these principles, check our motives, and finally ask God to grant us wisdom. And then we make the decision. We don’t wait for signs. We could end up waiting a long time and never do anything! What’s more, if we are looking for a sign are we really trusting God? If God “tells” us, “Yes, you must go to school here or buy that house” are we taking risks for Christ? Does not God desire us to put our trust in Him unreservedly?

So dig out the principles of decision making found in God’s word that He has given to us. Pray for wisdom and just make a decision. God’s will is not a tight rope as we often imagine it to be. But know that there is freedom in Christ! Freedom to obey His word, freedom to trust Him and freedom to make decisions without lying fleece on the ground. So stop living in fear that you are “missing out” on God’s will for your life if you make a decision without signs or visions or that supernatural peace that we often talk about. The only way to miss out on God’s will for your life is to not do anything at all!